Kuru Resort — Hotel in Savonlinna sub-region

We arrived at Kuru Private Resort on Tuesday. The Kuru reception is only open on the weekends, so we had to go to the Järvisydän resort reception to check in. The Kuru website mentions a warm welcome with a seasonal drink. Sounds lovely! We arrived and told the receptionist we were checking in for Kuru. She said "Okay" and turned to the computer. That's it. We got our keys but no explanation of how the Kuru Resort works. Nevermind, we figured it would all be explained at the villa. The receptionist also made a crucial error at this point; more about that later.||||We arrived at the villa and were surprised that there were no written instructions or a welcome note to be found, aside from the minibar price list. The website says "We also warmly encourage you to try a meditation practice in a sauna, you can find a guide for this from your Villa", but this was nowhere to be found. On our way to dinner at Järvisydän, we stopped by at reception again to ask. The male receptionist assured us the instructions brochure would be sent to our villa ASAP. In the end, it was dropped off at 11pm! If we had been staying for only one night, this would have meant we would not have been able to use some of the key features of the villa such as the fireplace or the sauna. Luckily, we were booked for two nights, so we had time. The meditation guide mentioned on the website never appeared.||||After we returned from a walk the next day, we discovered our keys no longer worked. I called the reception and they said they would send someone over. We waited for 15 minutes in -18°C until a man came down, opened our villa door without saying a word and turned to leave. When I asked him what we were supposed to do with our keys, he said "dunno" and left. Upon arriving at the main Kuru building for a yoga class, I asked the woman behind the reception whether she could fix the keys. She said no, we would have to go to the Järvisydän reception. If she was service minded, she could have said "Leave the keys with me and I'll take care of it while you're in yoga", but apparently that's not the attitude at Kuru.||||After yoga, the keys (predictably) still did not work, so we had to make the 1 km trek, in our yoga clothes, in -20°C weather, to the main reception to get the keys exchanged. Once there, we explained the issue to the (new) receptionist, who said "Okay" and turned to the computer (can we see a pattern forming here?). She then started to explain why the keys had stopped working (the first night's receptionist had only activated them for one night). Look, I don't care why there's a problem. I get it, mistakes happen. I don't expect to be comped or anything. But I do I expect an acknowledgement that they messed up, and that I, a guest, am disrupting my holiday and doing the legwork to fix it since they seem unwilling to. Even a "Sorry about that" would have been nice, but nope.||||Over the course of a two-night stay, we interacted with six different staff members, and only one of them (the older lady who checked us out) was truly pleasant; she gave us a smile and wished us a safe journey home. I would say that's the minimum level in hospitality, but compared to the others, it seemed exceptional.||This trip was supposed to be relaxing, but it was frustrating more than anything.||"At Kuru Resort we will take care of all your needs, so you can focus solely on being lazy." Oh please.||||Some miscellaneous notes:||- Breakfast will be delivered to the outdoor porch between 8.30 and 9am. You have no say in the time. If you wish to sleep in, I hope you like your breakfast frozen solid; in any case, it'll be cold. There is no way to heat it up at the villa.||- There is an impressive coffee machine in the villa, but only green tea and rooibos (no black tea). There is sugar available, but no sweeteners. There was a total of 3 mini milk cartons provided for the duration of the stay; these were not replaced by housekeeping.||- There is a superb restaurant at the Kuru Resort (Restaurant Solitary). However, it only serves dinner. This means that between your breakfast delivery and 6pm, there is NO FOOD available for purchase closer than the Järvisydän resort 1 km away. Do not ask me why you can't pay to have lunch delivered to the villa; it seems like a no-brainer to me. Even serving a simple soup lunch at the main Kuru building would be wonderful and minimize disruptions. We were hoping to just stay in the villa and chill, but this was simply not possible.||- Housekeeping entered our villa the first morning of our stay. To do what, I don't know; when they left, the beds were unmade, the towels unchanged, the bins not emptied, nor was anything refilled. This means we could not use the fireplace the second night as we had run out of fuel the first time we used it.||- The villas are heated by a reverse air conditioning unit. This means it blows hot air into the room to heat it. However, during winter, the stone floors remain cold. I also woke up once during the second night as the AC unit had suddenly stopped and the temperature in the villa had dropped noticeably. After awhile it kicked in again, but I could have done without the sleep interruption!||- The Rantasalmi region is absolutely stunning. The view from our villa was breath-taking. Kuru Resort is such a great idea, if only the service matched the...

We arrived at Kuru Private Resort on Tuesday. The Kuru reception is only open on the weekends, so we had to go to the Järvisydän resort reception to check in. The Kuru website mentions a warm welcome with a seasonal drink. Sounds lovely! We arrived and told the receptionist we were checking in for Kuru. She said "Okay" and turned to the computer. That's it. We got our keys but no explanation of how the Kuru Resort works. Nevermind, we figured it would all be explained at the villa. The receptionist also made a crucial error at this point; more about that later.||||We arrived at the villa and were surprised that there were no written instructions or a welcome note to be found, aside from the minibar price list. The website says "We also warmly encourage you to try a meditation practice in a sauna, you can find a guide for this from your Villa", but this was nowhere to be found. On our way to dinner at Järvisydän, we stopped by at reception again to ask. The male receptionist assured us the instructions brochure would be sent to our villa ASAP. In the end, it was dropped off at 11pm! If we had been staying for only one night, this would have meant we would not have been able to use some of the key features of the villa such as the fireplace or the sauna. Luckily, we were booked for two nights, so we had time. The meditation guide mentioned on the website never appeared.||||After we returned from a walk the next day, we discovered our keys no longer worked. I called the reception and they said they would send someone over. We waited for 15 minutes in -18°C until a man came down, opened our villa door without saying a word and turned to leave. When I asked him what we were supposed to do with our keys, he said "dunno" and left. Upon arriving at the main Kuru building for a yoga class, I asked the woman behind the reception whether she could fix the keys. She said no, we would have to go to the Järvisydän reception. If she was service minded, she could have said "Leave the keys with me and I'll take care of it while you're in yoga", but apparently that's not the attitude at Kuru.||||After yoga, the keys (predictably) still did not work, so we had to make the 1 km trek, in our yoga clothes, in -20°C weather, to the main reception to get the keys exchanged. Once there, we explained the issue to the (new) receptionist, who said "Okay" and turned to the computer (can we see a pattern forming here?). She then started to explain why the keys had stopped working (the first night's receptionist had only activated them for one night). Look, I don't care why there's a problem. I get it, mistakes happen. I don't expect to be comped or anything. But I do I expect an acknowledgement that they messed up, and that I, a guest, am disrupting my holiday and doing the legwork to fix it since they seem unwilling to. Even a "Sorry about that" would have been nice, but nope.||||Over the course of a two-night stay, we interacted with six different staff members, and only one of them (the older lady who checked us out) was truly pleasant; she gave us a smile and wished us a safe journey home. I would say that's the minimum level in hospitality, but compared to the others, it seemed exceptional.||This trip was supposed to be relaxing, but it was frustrating more than anything.||"At Kuru Resort we will take care of all your needs, so you can focus solely on being lazy." Oh please.||||Some miscellaneous notes:||- Breakfast will be delivered to the outdoor porch between 8.30 and 9am. You have no say in the time. If you wish to sleep in, I hope you like your breakfast frozen solid; in any case, it'll be cold. There is no way to heat it up at the villa.||- There is an impressive coffee machine in the villa, but only green tea and rooibos (no black tea). There is sugar available, but no sweeteners. There was a total of 3 mini milk cartons provided for the duration of the stay; these were not replaced by housekeeping.||- There is a superb restaurant at the Kuru Resort (Restaurant Solitary). However, it only serves dinner. This means that between your breakfast delivery and 6pm, there is NO FOOD available for purchase closer than the Järvisydän resort 1 km away. Do not ask me why you can't pay to have lunch delivered to the villa; it seems like a no-brainer to me. Even serving a simple soup lunch at the main Kuru building would be wonderful and minimize disruptions. We were hoping to just stay in the villa and chill, but this was simply not possible.||- Housekeeping entered our villa the first morning of our stay. To do what, I don't know; when they left, the beds were unmade, the towels unchanged, the bins not emptied, nor was anything refilled. This means we could not use the fireplace the second night as we had run out of fuel the first time we used it.||- The villas are heated by a reverse air conditioning unit. This means it blows hot air into the room to heat it. However, during winter, the stone floors remain cold. I also woke up once during the second night as the AC unit had suddenly stopped and the temperature in the villa had dropped noticeably. After awhile it kicked in again, but I could have done without the sleep interruption!||- The Rantasalmi region is absolutely stunning. The view from our villa was breath-taking. Kuru Resort is such a great idea, if only the service matched the...

Kuru Resort (also known as Kuru Private Resort) is a luxury resort only for adults (you have to be at least 18 years old). I wouldn't call this a B&B accommodation. Here you have hotel level services in an own apartment.||They accommodate only 2 people in one apartment. So our family booked a lake villa and a lake suite. If you book a villa you get the whole house and you haven't any wall neighbors but lake villas aren't lakeside villas. They only have lake (and forest) view. If you want to stay near the lake you should choose a lake suite. Lake suites are situated in two-storied apartment houses with outdoor corridors. This house type is called luhtitalo in Finnish. These houses are situated only a couple of meters from Lake Hietalampi. You can even sit in your own electric sauna and watch the lake. However, it isn't possible to swim in front of the villa. There are two rentable lakeside saunas with swimming piers in the area. You may use those swimming piers without renting the sauna, if saunas aren't booked. If the sauna is booked, you see a rope in front of the passageway.||Both villas and suites have floor to ceiling windows (even in the bathroom with a rain shower and a bathtub), a separate toilet room, a very efficient air-conditioning system, an espresso machine, a water kettle, a combined fridge and minibar, a fireplace (either a wood-burning fireplace or a bioethanol fireplace) and a glazed terrace with two hanging chairs. You can open the windows of the terrace if you want. There is a door to the terrace both from the apartment and from the outdoor corridor.||You may choose a breakfast delivered to the villa (in front of the outdoor or to the terrace) between 8.30 and 9.30 a.m. or you may walk 800 meters to the restaurant of Hotel & Spa Resort Järvisydän to have a more versatile buffet breakfast at 8.00-11.00 a.m. We chose the buffet breakfast. It was excellent. They even had a waffle station where you could bake your own waffles and enjoy waffles with ice-cream.||Both Kuru Resort and Hotel & Spa Resort Järvisydän are owned by same owners. So you may use all services of Järvisydän, too. They organize many interesting activities and excursions. We booked a cruise to Linnansaari National Park and back. The normal price is 32,90 euros but the customers of Kuru Resort pay only 20 euros if they book the cruise in advance. The cruising time to the island of Linnansaari is 45-60 minutes. Then you have 30-45 minutes on the island (45 minutes on day cruises and 30 minutes on evening cruises). You may walk to the scenic spot of Linnavuori. The distance is about 700 meters in one way and it includes over 100 stairs. It takes about 20-25 minutes to walk there and back if you walk briskly. There are also longer nature trails on the island but then you need more time. If you want to stay longer on the island, you can return on a later boat (or next day) if you tell that to the crew. We even saw two very rare Saimaa ringed seals on the cruise.||Also many other excursions and activities are available: special seal watching cruises (seal watching safaris), dinner cruises, luxury yacht cruises, paddling tours, yoga etc. You find a small sandy beach, a lake spa (also indoor swimming pools), many beautiful forest trails and a forest cafe with alpacas in the area, too. The gourmet restaurant of Kuru Resort is named Solitary (prebooking needed) and the more conventional restaurant of Järvisydän is called Piikatyttö (you don't need any prebooking in the Bistro area of the restaurant). Read separate Tripadvisor reviews of these restaurants. There is also a wooden house district named Hakoapaja Aikhikylä (buildings made of ancient logs pulled from the bottom of the lake) with a panorama cafe in the area but it is owned by another owners. ||So there is something to do for everybody in Kuru Resort. The holiday here was one of the highlights...